Anna and her friends walked slowly through the trees and into the small clearing where their targets waited. They were about fifteen feet away when the light of the moon caught them, causing Fredrick and Jacqueline to turn their heads sharply, staring at them with wrathful eyes. The light landed on Carmine first, and when Fredrick saw her walking determinedly toward him, he started laughing – a loud, menacing sound. Jacqueline just smirked sadistically.
"You?" Fredrick said in disbelief. As the light shone on Anna and Mia, Fredrick's shock turned to outright glee. "Oh, this just gets better and better! You three sent that note? Are you serious? Just look at you!"
He pointed at Carmine, a malicious grin spreading across his face. "Who do you think you are? Some girl trying to save the city? Everybody already thinks you're crazy! ...And the fact that you even bothered to show up here just proves them right."
Carmine stiffened a little. Anna glanced sideways at her and thought she could see Carmine's ears burning, even in the dark. Fredrick, however, wasn't finished. Now that he'd put Carmine in her place, he turned and focused his attention to Mia.
"And look who else decided to come along." he jeered. "I never thought you'd be the kind of person to even care to show up. You act so high and mighty all the time. Unless..." Fredrick's eyes gleamed maliciously, as if a particularly nasty thought had just occurred to him. "Unless you showed up just to watch that one fail."
As he said the last part, he pointed derisively at Carmine. Mia glared silently at him for a moment before sneaking a quick glance over at Carmine. Anna's eyes widened as she watched the sliver of doubt grow between them, just as Fredrick had intended. Finally, he focused his attention on Anna, his pure hatred for her showing plainly on his twisted face.
"This is all your fault, isn't it?" he said, rage filling his voice. "You weren't even supposed to survive! I meant to kill you! The only reason I didn't come back and finish the job was because I thought you'd never last this long. Well, I'll fix that little mistake tonight!"
Fredrick crouched somewhat, preparing to attack. But, while he had been busy insulting everyone around him, Anna had not been idle. The more she'd listened, the angrier she'd gotten. She was tired of him mocking her friends, and she was tired of him putting her down. She realized she was just plain tired of Fredrick himself.
While Fredrick was berating Carmine, Anna had merely been clutching her little bag tightly in her hands, crushing the fabric in her fingers. But, as he started in on Mia, a thought had dawned on Anna. Slowly, she pulled the bag open, grateful that she'd thought of something so noiseless; despite his outrage, Anna knew that even the slightest sound could alert Fredrick to her plan. By the time he was done with Mia, Anna had her hand in the bag and was groping around inside. As Fredrick stood there insulting and threatening Anna, her hand was feeling about inside her bag – carefully, but quickly.
She felt through its contents as best she could, trying not to draw attention to the fact that she was doing anything suspicious. She needn't have worried; Fredrick was too busy staring intently into her face. Trying to see every bit of the hurt he caused, no doubt.
Anna searched in vain for the little baggie filled with chopped garlic. With no visual cues to aid her, she just couldn't tell which baggie held the garlic and which were the useless mustard seeds. Fredrick finished his little speech too quickly; Anna still hadn't found what she was looking for. But time had run out. As he started to crouch, Anna reached quickly into the bottom of her bag. There, she found a clove of garlic nestled in the corner. Anna clutched it in her hand and in one smooth motion drew it out of the bag and hurled it as hard as she could at Fredrick's head.
"Oww!" Fredrick exclaimed, his hand flying up to his cheek, eyes wide. "What was that?"
He pulled his hand away, and Anna could clearly see a bright red triangle where the garlic had hit him just under his eye. She knew it hurt – and not just because of the force with which she'd thrown it; her own hand was burning too.
Throwing a clove of garlic at a vampire wasn't the most effective thing she could have done. All it really seemed to do was make Fredrick mad – furious, actually. But it had been so much fun! And the look of shock on Fredrick's face was priceless. Yes it was ineffective, but it was so worth it! Anna stood there grinning. Fredrick, however, was doing anything but.
"Why you little – " Fredrick started as he lunged towards Anna. Then, things happened fast.
Anna jumped back behind Mia to avoid being hit by Fredrick, dropping her bag of weapons in the process. Fredrick sailed harmlessly by, and Mia and Carmine each dove for the bag. Jacqueline dove for Carmine, teeth bared, fangs ready to strike.
Carmine reached the bag before Mia. As soon as she grabbed it, she spun around to face Jacqueline – who was now standing where Carmine had been only moments before. Carmine frantically reached down into the bag, pulling out a handful of plastic. Looking down, she saw that she'd grabbed the bags of mustard seeds, salt and garlic salt. Seeing Jacqueline bearing down on her ready to strike again, Carmine stumbled backwards, dropping everything but the garlic salt. Now lying on the ground, Jacqueline only a few feet away from her, Carmine opened the baggie. She closed her eyes and turned her head as she flicked the power out of the bag and into Jacqueline's face. Jacqueline jumped back into a standing position, face in hands, and let out an ear-piercing scream.
While Jacqueline was writhing in pain, Mia seized the opportunity. She'd grabbed her bottle of holy water while Carmine had been occupying Jacqueline. Turning now to face Carmine's attacker, Mia opened the sports lid on the bottle and squeezed it as hard as she could. Water sprayed, drenching Jacqueline from head to toe.
As the water hit Jacqueline, she let out a terrible, nightmarish scream; a sound that could only come from someone dying a horrific death. The noise stopped everyone else dead in their tracks. Around the clearing, four pairs of eyes involuntarily turned towards Jacqueline.
What little color she had seemed to drain away, leaving her ghostly pale. Her hands, which were still covering her face, began to melt away, slowly turning to ash and falling towards the ground. As her face was exposed, the four could see it was covered in red blotches from first the garlic, then the holy water. As her body continued to decay, Jacqueline lifted her face towards the night sky. Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only white; her dark mouth open still open, still emitting a shrill scream. Slowly, she began to collapse toward the ground, her body continuing to crack and crumble. After a few moments that seemed to last a lifetime, nothing was left of her except a pile of fine grey ash and the faint sound of her lingering scream still echoing through the trees.
Then silence fell. Everyone stopped, as if they were unable to comprehend what had just happened. It was as if nobody could really believe that Jacqueline had actually been killed.
Fredrick was the first to recover. He had been chasing Anna around the clearing since she'd thrown that thing at him, but so far she'd managed to avoid the brunt of his attacks, suffering only minor cuts and bruises. They'd migrated to the other side of the clearing, several yards away from Mia and Carmine and the grisly pile of ash that had been Anna's one-time best friend.
Seeing that Anna was distractedly looking at the place where Jacqueline had so recently been, Fredrick lunged. Anna, who had seen him out of the corner of her eye, moved just in time. Instead of a killing blow, his fangs only grazed her neck as he flew past her.
The movement on the other side of the clearing was enough to snap Mia and Carmine back to their senses; it wasn't over yet. Mia grabbed the bottle of holy water from the pouch that had been Anna's and the two raced to their friend's aid.
Fredrick was consumed with his hatred of Anna, and was concentrating now only on destroying her. Because of this, he didn't realize just how close Mia and Carmine actually were. Mia, seeing how well holy water had worked on Jacqueline, decided to try that trick again. She flicked the blue cap open on her new bottle and aimed it directly at Fredrick.
With her hands wrapped around the bottle's middle, Mia stopped. She couldn't get a clear shot – Anna was too close to him, and Mia couldn't risk hitting her instead. Quickly, she ran around behind Anna, intending to hit Fredrick from the front. As Mia ran, Carmine grabbed something out of the almost forgotten backpack still resting securely on her shoulders and followed Mia.
Anna saw her friends circle around behind her from out of the corner of her eye. While her attention was divided, Fredrick tried once again to jump her. Anna ducked, landing palms first on the hard dirt under a large oak.
"Ha!" Mia cried as she flung some of the water at Fredrick. But now that he knew what was in those bottles, he'd been prepared and twisted around in mid-air to avoid the deadly spray. He escaped fatal damage, but the water had hit him in the ear and across his hand, leaving deep red gashes in both places. He screamed in pain and stumbled backwards.
"Anna!" Carmine yelled, chucking something across the grass. It skidded across the dirt and hit Anna squarely in the elbow. Without thinking, Anna grabbed at whatever it was. She picked it up along with a handful of dirt. And as her fingers wrapped around the smooth wood, Anna knew what it was.
Carmine had just thrown Anna that stake. Anna grabbed it tight, feeling its sinister, heavy weight in her hand.
"I've had enough of this!" Fredrick screamed furiously at her. He stood up, his face smeared with blood. He ran straight for Anna at full speed. This time, his aim was perfect – he hit Anna full-force, knocking her to the ground.
Anna struggled to breathe; the weight of a full-grown vampire coming down on her like a truck had knocked the wind out of her. Somewhere she heard a scream – Mia or Carmine, she couldn't tell. Pinned under the weight of Fredrick's entire body, she closed her eyes, waiting for the end to come – for him to finish her off.
And she waited. After a few minutes of nothing, Anna opened her eyes just a sliver. Still nothing. She opened them all the way and looked up at Fredrick, who was still lying on top of her.
He was gasping for air, his breath ragged. His eyes were glazed and unseeing. With all the strength she had left, Anna rolled him off of her. As she stood up and gazed over him, Anna saw what had happened to Fredrick.
As he had run towards her, Anna had instinctively put her hands up. And with them, the stake.
It hadn't gone straight through his heart; it was too low for that. But she knew, miraculously enough, that she'd gotten at least a piece of it. And the look on Fredrick's face only confirmed it. Anna watched as he, like her former friend before him, turned a chalky-grey before crumbling to ash, leaving no trace that anyone had ever laid there, except for the flattened grass.
Anna looked down at the pile of ash. It was over. Finally.
"You ok?" Mia asked after a minute.
"Yeah." Anna replied. She could still feel the burn in her hand from the garlic she'd thrown, and a wetness on her neck reminded her of where Fredrick's fangs had gotten too close. Still, they were minor injuries, and they would heal.
"I'll be fine." she told them. Then, pulling away, she looked carefully into each of her friends' faces in turn. "What about you two? Are you ok? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. Just a few scratches from falling on something in the grass." Carmine said, sounding surprised at the fact that she hadn't been more seriously injured during the ordeal.
"Me too." Mia chimed in. Though Anna could see the faint red lines along the backs of her hands where the holy water had dripped down the bottle after being sprayed. Mia followed Anna's eyes, seeing the blisters already starting to form. Mia looked back at Anna and tried to smile brightly.
"I'll heal." she reassured her.
"Good. I'm glad you two are ok – or, relatively ok." Anna said, letting out a sigh of relief; things could have been so much worse. She turned to the pile of ashes that used to be Fredrick, her one-time fiancé. It was strange. Looking at that pile – no bigger than a shoebox – she didn't feel sorrow or regret; she felt nothing but relief.
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